Our Eyes Deceive Us

“Your eyes can deceive you, don’t trust them.”

With these words, Obi-Wan answers Luke’s skeptical reply to his earlier instruction to try and defend himself from the remotes bolts.

We are like Luke in that we often trust our eyes way too much. He feared that he could not fight because the blast shield was down. Often we are unable to get past the optics of a situation.

We judge a person based on their appearance and how they outwardly present themselves.

Unfortunately, this has been happening for 1000s of years.

Deceitful Eyes Blind A Prophet Of God

Like us, the prophet Samuel made that mistake.

Samuel did so when he was looking at anoint Israel’s next king, a son of Jesse (1 Samuel 16:6).

Samuel assumed the eldest brother was to he was to anoint as the future king.

The LORD, however, had not chosen him.

“But the LORD said to Samuel, ‘Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart’” (1 Samuel 16:17).

Samuel was looking with eyes that could only see the surface.

How Times HAVEN’T Changed

Today, some 2500 years since the events mentioned in Samuel, we still let our eyes blind us.

We still view people based on their appearance. A better way to view a person is based on what they do.

We cannot see a person’s heart, but we can look at the works they produce and what they say.

In Luke 6:43,45, Jesus said, “For no good tree bears bad fruit, nor again does a bad tree bear good fruit, for each tree is known by its own fruit…The good person out of the good treasure of his heart produces good, and the evil person out of his evil treasure produces evil, for out of the abundance of the heart his mouth speaks.”

We need to remember that Jesus warned us in Matthew 7:1-2 “Judge not, that you be not judged. For with the judgment you pronounce you will be judged, and with the measure you use it will be measured to you.”

In Matthew 7:3-5 Jesus told us that we need to clean up our own eyes before we look at another.

He said “Why do you see the speck that is in your brother’s eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye.”

Be Cleansed

We are unable to remove the log ourselves. We need to be cleansed by Jesus and given sight just like the blind man in Jericho where Luke records in 18:41-21; “What do you want Me to do for you?” He [Jesus] said, “Lord, let me recover my sight.” And Jesus said to him, “Recover your sight; your faith has made you well.”

When we put our faith in Jesus, we too will recover our true sight.